One way of answering those questions is to consider the actions of a few "great men": Saddam Hussein, George Bush, Osama bin Laden, Bill Clinton, Mullah Omar, and George W. Bush. Here's how a simple "Great Man" narrative--a historical account based on the actions of powerful individuals--could be constructed:

• In 1990, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein ordered Iraqi forces to invade Kuwait and seize its oil wells.
  
  
• The next year, President George Bush assembled a multinational coalition, which defeated the Iraqi troops and liberated Kuwait.
  
  
• In 1998, Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden orchestrated attacks against the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in order to protest the continued presence of U.S. troops--some of whom had relocated to Saudi Arabia after the liberation of Kuwait--near Islam's holiest sites (Mecca and Medina).
  
  
  
  
  Osama bin Laden
  World Conflicts Today
  © Getty Images
  
  
• In retaliation, President Bill Clinton ordered the bombing of terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, where bin Laden was staying as a guest, and demanded bin Laden's extradition.
  
  
• Mullah Omar--the leader of Afghanistan's Taliban government whose views on Islam were similar to bin Laden's--refused to hand his notorious guest over and allowed him to continue operating terrorist training camps.
  
  
• From his Afghan sanctuary, bin Laden planned more devastating attacks against the United States, notably those carried out on September 11, 2001.
  
  
• Several weeks after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush ordered U.S. troops into Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and capture or kill Osama bin Laden.
  
  
• Buoyed by the relative ease of the military victory in Afghanistan and enabled by a lingering post-9/11 angst, President Bush ordered U.S. troops into Iraq in 2003 to remove Saddam Hussein and destroy his weapons of mass destruction.
  
  
• Although Saddam Hussein was easily removed and his weapons found not to exist, U.S. forces have struggled to impose order in Iraq.
  
  
  Capture of Saddam Hussein
  World Conflicts Today
  © Getty Images
  
  
• Osama bin Laden has exploited the presence of U.S. troops in the heart of the Islamic world to recruit Muslims from all over the world to militant Islamist causes.

Activity

Read through the relevant sections of the World Conflicts Today reports on Iraq and Afghanistan. As a class, discuss the following essential questions that promote critical thinking about the role of the individual in history:

• If the military strike President Clinton ordered against terrorist training camps in 1998 had killed Osama bin Laden, do you believe U.S. troops would be in Afghanistan today?
  
  
• If Al Gore had won America's historically close election in 2000, do you believe that U.S. troops would be in Iraq today?
  
  
• Which have played a greater role in shaping recent U.S. policies toward the Middle East: the actions of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and Mullah Omar (the "Great Man" theory) or the fact that about two-thirds of the world's proven oil reserves are located in the region (determinism)?